25 Things You Didn't Know About John Cena
2. WCW Almost Signed Him First
It's mad to realise that WCW has been gone for almost 25 years. A quarter century, just like that. Wow. It's even wackier to hear that the defunct company almost signed none other than John Cena to a deal before WWE could get their hands on him. This is a story John told on Busted Open Radio a few years back. World Championship Wrestling top brass viewed him as a prospect, and they were interested.
Their interest prompted the then-WWF to make moves and snap John up instead. They leapt in with a counter offer, which John said was strictly "so [he] wouldn't go to WCW for peanuts". Peanuts?! From the same promotion that hurled money at guys they didn't even fly in for television?! Surely not. To be fair, Cena wasn't a household name in the industry at that point. He was simply looking for a way to make a name for himself full stop.
WWF/WWE scouts knew he was something special, but he admits: "I kind of got hired defensively". The McMahon family just didn't want WCW to get their paws on anybody in 2000/early-2001. Of course, even if Cena had shown up on Nitro/Thunder/Saturday Night/WorldWide, his contract would've become available as an option when Vince bought remnants of his own competition in March '01.
So, put another way, there's a solid chance he would've ended up on WWE's side eventually anyway. The group refused to take any risks on that. Christ, it would've been some story for John to tell had he wrestled Goldberg on Thunder, or something like that.
Or worse, he'd stared at the lights for Kwee-Wee on WorldWide.